Sierra Nevada ready to put spacecraft through rigorous approach, landing flight tests in California this year

By John Aguilar Camera Staff Writer

Posted:
06/02/2012 05:00:00 PM MDT

Updated:
06/03/2012 06:55:44 PM MDT

LOUISVILLE -- Images from space dominated the week and fired up imaginations all over again.

An unmanned capsule launched by a private company docked with the International Space Station 240 miles above Earth, exchanged cargo with the astronauts living there and then plummeted through the atmosphere into a picture-perfect splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on Thursday morning.

The accomplishment was a first for the burgeoning commercial space sector and California-based SpaceX, helmed by 40-year-old South Africa-born billionaire Elon Musk, was lauded worldwide for its success.

But just two days before the heralded return of SpaceX's Dragon capsule 560 miles off the coast of Baja California, a company much closer to home reached a critical milestone of its own in the commercial race to space -- albeit one done largely out of the glare of the media spotlight.

Sierra Nevada Corporation Space Systems, headquartered on the Colorado Technology Center campus in Louisville, passed one of the most complex tests it has faced in its attempt to launch a seven-person orbital vehicle -- called the Dream Chaser -- into space by 2016. Known as a captive-carry test, the effort required the 40-foot-long and 25-foot-wide Dream Chaser to be lifted by an Erickson Air-Crane helicopter into the skies above Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport and put through a battery of tests measuring its aerodynamic flight performance.

Last week's successful result paves the way for the sleek space plane to undergo autonomous approach and landing tests at Edwards Air Force Base in California this fall before finally heading skyward on an Atlas V rocket.

"We're really excited because after taking it on paper for many years, we're actually starting to fly the real thing that NASA is going to be taking to space," said Mark Sirangelo, who heads up Sierra Nevada's 230-employee space systems division in Louisville.

He doesn't begrudge SpaceX's day in the sun because he recognizes that every success scored by Sierra Nevada's competitors strengthens the private sector space program as a whole. With NASA's space shuttle program mothballed since last summer, Sirangelo said the only thing that will spare the United States from having to pay upwards of $60 million for a seat on the Russian Soyuz space capsule is a privately built vehicle like Dream Chaser.

In this image provided by NASA with clouds and land forming a backdrop, the SpaceX Dragon commercial cargo craft is grappled by the Canadarm2 robotic arm at the International Space Station on May 25. (AP Photo/NASA)

"We believe that the goal here is to bring America back into the human space flight business," he said.

Sirangelo imagines a day when Colorado, with an already formidable aerospace infrastructure in place, takes on an even bigger role in the next phase of space travel.

He points to Sierra Nevada's relationship with the University of Colorado's Engineering Center and United Launch Alliance, based in Centennial, as a powerful nexus. And then there's Lockheed Martin's work at its Waterton facility south of Denver on NASA's Orion crew module, which is being designed for interplanetary and deep space travel.

"We see Colorado potentially as being the focal point of human space flight for the United States going forward," Sirangelo said.

High-risk business

Industry analysts warn, however, that the path ahead for the commercial space sector won't be free of space junk, floating debris and other risks.

While a private company has proven it can deliver supplies to the International Space Station and return to Earth, shuttling astronauts back and forth to space -- a feat only a handful of national governments has managed to do -- represents a whole new level of complexity.

"The next phase of delivering crew up there is an additional quantum leap over moving cargo up there," said David Klaus, associate professor with the aerospace engineering sciences department at CU-Boulder.

Paul Guthrie, senior economist at space industry consulting firm The Tauri Group in Alexandria, Va., said one major slip-up or error by a company trying to land a lucrative contract with NASA can set back a program by years and cost it hundreds of millions of dollars.

Making matters worse is that Sierra Nevada is not alone in seeking funding from NASA, which has operated over the last few years with a constrained budget. The space agency's Commercial Crew Program, which aims to partner with and fund companies that can design and build fully integrated commercial crew transport systems, includes seven firms working on launch systems, spacecraft or both.

This photo provided by SpaceX shows the Dragon spacecraft on a boat in the Pacific Ocean on Thursday. The Dragon parachuted into the Pacific to conclude the first private delivery to the International Space Station and inaugurate NASA's new approach to space exploration. (AP Photo/SpaceX)

Candrea Thomas, a NASA spokeswoman based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, said the space agency's goal with its Commercial Crew Program is to work with private industry to develop multiple spacecraft that can reliably and consistently ferry astronauts into low Earth orbit.

"It is in America's interest to have an American-led system to take our astronauts to the International Space Station," she said. "This kind of program helps us because it allows NASA to focus on deeper space exploration -- to places where we haven't gone before."

NASA has existing financial arrangements with Sierra Nevada, SpaceX, Boeing and Blue Origin, a space venture started by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, but the next big step happens next month. That's when the space agency awards $300 million to $500 million in Space Act Agreements to get to the goal of a crewed orbital demonstration flight in the next few years.

No one wants to lay bets on who comes out best in the funding scramble or gets a manned vehicle to space first, but The Tauri Group's Guthrie likes Sierra Nevada's odds.

First, there's the Dream Chaser's appearance: With its sleek, swept-back wings and rounded nose, it looks very much like a miniature version of the space shuttle that captured the nation's imagination over a 30-year period. Guthrie said the popularity of the shuttle program was made evident in mid-April when adoring spectators watched Discovery, mounted atop a Boeing 747, circle over Washington, D.C. on its way to retirement at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

"I think Sierra Nevada is being very intelligent in how they are designing the vehicle and how it will play in the public sphere," he said. "It's a huge psychic advantage in the PR battle."

More importantly, the company's recent completion of four milestones for NASA -- including a flight test readiness review and a preliminary design review -- "will put them on an accelerated path," he said. Sierra Nevada has already landed $125 million in funding from NASA.

Guthrie said the Dream Chaser, which is modeled after NASA's decades-old HL-20 Personnel Launch System, has been under development for a long time and is designed to launch on one of the world's most reliable rockets -- the Atlas V.

Klaus, the aerospace professor at CU, said the Dream Chaser's ability to land on any commercial runway in the world -- unique among the spacecraft being developed -- is a significant advantage. Unlike SpaceX's capsule, which had to be located and retrieved by ship, scientists would have quick access to time-sensitive biological experiments coming back on the Dream Chaser from the space station or from future scientific labs that may one day be built in space.

And unlike the space shuttle, Dream Chaser uses a nonvolatile fuel and can be handled almost immediately after coasting to a stop, said Jim Voss, vice president of Space Exploration Systems at Sierra Nevada.

"You can walk right up to this thing when it lands," said Voss, who flew on five space shuttle missions for NASA.

And Dream Chaser will prove more cost-effective than the space capsules it is competing against, Sirangelo said, because of its ability to be used multiple times on short notice.

"We have a reusability factor and we can turn the vehicle around in 60 days," he said.

Dot-com-like boom ahead?

Sierra Nevada and its rivals in the private space business aren't putting all their eggs in the International Space Station basket as they tackle what appears to be a wide-open market.

Sierra Nevada already manufactures small satellites and rocket motor systems for other aerospace companies, including some of its rivals. Sirangelo said the company could easily move in the direction of building a Dream Chaser that can repair or retrieve satellites. Or one that caters to the nascent space tourism market, especially since the craft's low g-force dynamics would translate into a smoother takeoff and reentry experience for the passenger than would be possible on a space capsule.

While penetrating the suborbital travel market would put Sierra Nevada up against even more competitors -- like Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, XCOR Aerospace's Lynx, and Armadillo Aerospace -- Alan Stern, associate vice president of the Boulder-based Southwest Research Institute, said providing a variety of services is the right way to tackle the commercial space market.

"They have to find a diversified customer base," he said. "They cannot make a viable business with only one customer -- NASA."

Stern said Sierra Nevada is up against some venerable competitors in the low Earth orbit sector, like ATK and Boeing. But he credits the company for having "deep experience on the bench." That includes the company's director of flight operations, Steven Lindsey, who joined Sierra Nevada last year.

Lindsey, who flew four shuttle missions for NASA, said he was awestruck at the number of people who gathered on Simms Street on the west side of Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport to watch Dream Chaser's captive-carry test on Tuesday.

"We're at a tipping point in commercial space," he said. "We're on the cusp of changing how things are done."

Guthrie, the analyst, likens today's jockeying and jostling among companies in the commercial space sector to the excitement and uncertainty of the dot-com boom 15 years ago.

"Like the Google or Amazon that came out of that boom, we could have some very big players that change the face of the space industry," he said.

Stern, who has already reserved for his institute future seats on suborbital spacecraft being designed by Virgin Galactic and XCOR, said as notable as this past week was for the commercial space industry, it's nothing compared to what lies down the road.

"I believe this pivotal week will be dwarfed by future accomplishments," he said. "I think this industry is still driving around in first gear."

The companies in NASA's Commercial Crew Program

SpaceX - The Hawthorne, Calif.-based company, headed by Ebay founder Elon Musk, docked the first commercial spacecraft to the International Space Station and then returned the capsule to Earth late last month. The capsule, called the Dragon, only carried cargo but the company said it is capable of carrying up to seven crewmembers.

Sierra Nevada Corp. - The company's Louisville-based space systems division is building the seven-person Dream Chaser space vehicle, the only commercial spacecraft being developed that will be able to land on a runway rather than splashing down in the ocean. It will be launched on an Atlas V rocket. Target operational date: 2016.

Boeing - The Chicago-based aerospace giant is developing the CST-100 space capsule, which will be compatible with a variety of launch vehicles. It is designed to accommodate a crew of seven. Target operational date: 2015.

Blue Origin - The secretive Kent, Wash.-based company, started by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, is working on a space vehicle that will carry seven crew members and is trying to develop a reusable first-stage booster to help get the vehicle to orbit relatively cheaply. Target operational date: 2016-2018.

ATK - The Arlington, Va.-based company is teaming with Lockheed Martin and the European aerospace firm Astrium to develop the Liberty Launch System, which includes a launch rocket and a capsule. ATK built the space shuttle's solid rocket boosters. Target operational date: 2016.

Excalibur Almaz - The Douglas, Isle of Man-based company wants to refurbish old space modules from the Soviet Union to build a spacecraft, using the time-tested nature of the equipment to its advantage.

United Launch Alliance — The Centennial-based company, a Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture, is seeking certification from NASA for its Atlas V launch vehicle for human spaceflight.

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